7 Emerging Leadership Arts You Need to Be Aware Of
Last week I had the chance to give my talk called ‘The Art of Tribal Leadership’ to an iMBA class here in Taipei. The group was as diverse as it gets, with students from all over the world (at least 12 different countries). We had a great time—they were a highly intelligent, inquisitive bunch. What really struck me however was how deeply interested they were in understanding the 7 emerging leadership arts that I’m going to share with you. Some they’d certainly heard of, but only fleetingly; others, no idea at all.
You may recall in the last issue of Unusual Leading I wrote how enabling people to self define images of leadership is one answer to the question of how to get everyone to say Yes! to leadership. There is a critical second component to the equation however—the question of which arts (or disciplines) those images and competencies are emerging from.
If you think about it, progressive leadership competencies don’t just magically appear—they have to be introduced and taught. We have little if any experience with them in our current educational system, and therefore, like all arts, they must be learned and practiced.
Take for example what came up when I asked the group of iMBAers leadership self-definition question #1:
What are the skills, attributes, attitudes, behaviors, or habits of leadership that you admire and aspire to?
The images they tossed out ran the gamut: motivating, inspirational, decisive, focused, respected, good communicator, charismatic, courageous, visionary, dedicated, responsible, and so on. With the exception of one—spiritual—it was a solid collection of images commonly held to reflect the pinnacle of great leadership.
The fact that this global group of young people was able to toss out these so easily is evidence of two things: first, these are powerful images that hold great attraction across a range of cultures and backgrounds. Second, these are highly socialized images, taught to us from a young age, precisely because they are so powerful. Indeed, many of these images arise from historical images of leader as hero, captain, military, statesman, celebrity, business titan, revolutionary, politician.
The issue with developing leadership competencies drawn from this stable of images is that for many they appear out of reach, unattainable, unrealistic, idealistic, or most importantly not in alignment with how they see themselves or want themselves to be. The result? People take themselves out of the leadership game.
But that’s not what we are going for here. We want people to lead…in all kinds of ways!
If you are truly serious about enabling the people in your organization to say Yes! to leadership you need to actively introduce new ways to lead—forward thinking, expansive competencies and skills that lie beyond the norm, the tried, the visible, the conditioned.
So here we go, let’s take a look at 7 emerging leadership arts. Even though I will not go into it here, remember that each of these arts has a definable skill set which can be learned, thus enabling people to lead in completely different ways.
- Self Organization: the art of pattern emergence recognition
- Self Directed Learning: the art of self initiative
- Coaching: the art of enabling and energizing potential
- Appreciative Intelligence: the art of seeing inherent possibilities
- Dialogue: the art of thinking together
- Community Building: the art of building authentic participation
- Facilitation: the art of creating group synergy
Let’s take facilitation as an example. Facilitation is a completely different way of working with a group or team than as manager or “boss”. In facilitation the leader, as facilitator, becomes the guide on a journey with the group. Good facilitation creates a space that values the voice of each individual, the collective wisdom of the group, cooperation, choice, and consensus. Hierarchy falls away.
Or self-organization (see Open Space Technology)? This is the epitome of what it means to lead by getting out of the way so that what wants to emerge can emerge. But getting out of the way is not leaving or quitting—it is a fully engaged position. A leader in the midst of self-organization has a role that might best be described as a space holder. It is non-leading leading.
What? That doesn’t make any sense! If you’re getting out of the way you’re not leading. Leaders take charge, make decisions, inspire people forward, delegate responsibilities…
Absolutely yes, they do that too. But knowing when to get out of the way—letting go of the impulse to control—and allowing things to unfold in an unpredictable and uncertain manner is a huge evolutionary leap in leadership competency.
When I told the iMBA students that it is possible to lead by getting out of the way you should have seen their faces. It simply had never occurred to them before.
And that’s my point.
The images of leadership that arise from these 7 arts are evolutionary. They are the future possibilities that we are just beginning to explore and understand. We can begin by introducing them to our leadership teams and committing to full support as they learn. You will see…people will get excited about leading again.
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As always, would love to hear your thoughts!
In light and learning,
Leon
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